The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-09-03
THE MAKERS OF CIGARS.
Exclusive Cubans and Spaniards and MIN
BILE Germans and Bohemians.


THE MAKERS OF CIGARS.
Exclusive Cubans and spaniards and MINI
BILE Germans and Bohemians.
There are two classes of cigar-mak-
ers in New York, those who do what is
called Spanish work and those who
work with domestic tobaccos. The
men who are on Spanish work are Gu
bans and Spaniards, some seven hun
dred in all. They object to having
any body else in their shops, and if a
cigarmaker of another nationality
should get a job there they would make
it so unpleasant FOR him that he would
leave. In this they are sustained by
their employers, who are Cubans or
Spaniards themselves. and believe that
Cubans and Spaniards are the only
people who know how to make the best
cigars. They are born with cigar
in their mouths, and they die with a
cigarette between their teeth.
The only tobacco used in some of the
Spanish workshops is imported, while
others use both Havana and Key
West tobacco, and make a grade of
Key West cigars in which there is a
fair amount of domestic tobacco, more
than they acknowledge. All their
cigars are high-priced, and the men
earn on the average twice as much a
thousand as is paid to other cigar
makers. 1t is a common thing for
them to give out work at $50 and $35 a
thousand, and cigarmaker who is
| quick enough to turn out thousand
of that grade in a week makes good
wages. They have grades of cigars
for which $50 and more is paid thou
sand. A thousand of such cigars are
worth several hundred dollars, and
they are not often manufactured. The
high prices paid make the Cuban cigar
makers regard themselves as the aristo-
Gratis of the trade, though there is no
such difference in wages as the scale of
prices per thousand would seem to
show. A good cigarmaker can make
two thousand $3.50 cigars while a
Cuban is making one thousand ST or
$40 cigars.
There is jealousy and rivalry in the
Cuban shops among the rapid cigar
makers. In every shop there are two
or three who regard themselves as the
best men. They have contests, and
the one who wins is pitted against the
best men of other shops. Pericho Bet
tancourt has been regarded as the best
man for some time, though there are
others who dispute the title. On good
work he could make $40 week and
more if he kept at it steadily, and it is
even said of him that he could make a
thousand $50 cigars in a week. These
are wages that no maker of cheap
cigars could ever make, as he would
have to turn out thousand cigars a
day to do it.
The bulk of the cigarmakers are Ger
mans and Bohemians, who turn out
cigars from So thousand to $21. These
are the two extremes OF ordinary trade,
though there are tenement-house cigars
made as low as 81, and an occa-
sional order runs up to $50 or more.
No union man makes cigars under 81
a thousand, and that is the limit of
price in union shop, but there are a
few non-union shops that go lower.
None of these cigars are made of i'm.
ported tobacco, though many have
Sumatra wrappers or Havana filters.
A manufacturer tries to introduce some
imported tobacco, no matter what the
quality or character, that he may call
his cigars imported, though millions OF
cigars are marked imported where not
bit of the tobacco ever breathed salt
air before it reached New York. 1t is
better to smoke d cigar made through
out of good domestic tobacco than Of
poor imported, though there are not
many smokers who appreciate the truth
of this.
There is more difference between
cigarmakers than between smokers
A Sc cigarmakcr could could no more
make $50 cigar than man who had
never touched piece of tobacco be.
fore could make Sc cigar. In the
first place he would not know how tc
hold the tobacco. A skilled cigar.
maker takes up his filler, binder and
wrapper differently from an unskilled
cigarmaker and it takes years to learn
how to do it. To become a good cigar
maker man must begin as Il boy, when
his fingers are supple, and some men
can not learn even then. Foreigners
take more naturally to it than Ameri-
can boys. An American tends to make
cigars by machinery, and will not take
the patient care it requires to make
the point taper, the oelly gradually
swell, and the beautiful curves that a
fine cigar shows. He thinks that SC
long as the tobacco all gets there, sticks
together and can be smoked, that his
work is done. That may be the reason
that the cream of the cigarmakine
work is done by foreigners whose an.
cestors made cigars and smoked then
for generations before. N Y Sun.
For the prevalent disease of scaly
legs in fowls, caused by minute in